Hermite and Lipschitz: a correspondence and its echoes (Q2314083)

The author provides an overview of the correspondence between the French mathematician Charles Hermite and his German colleague Rudolf Lipschitz. The correspondence is an extensive one, and is not restricted to mathematics; it touches various topics from the personal as well as academic lives of both mathematicians, includes comments on publishing issues, politics, or general reflections on the development of science. The author then takes a more general point of view, discusses the scientific role of a correspondence as a means of rapid communication of new results, emphasizes the need of studying letters in a suitable context with the help of external resources, and points out some issues that editors have to cope with when preparing letters for publication. The correspondence between Hermite and Lipschitz serves as an illustration for the general conclusions presented here. For the entire collection see [Zbl 1411.01011].